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Article

19 Jun 2024

Author:
Fibre2Fashion

Lesotho: Almost 16,000 textile & apparel jobs lost in six years, with 13% employment drop

"Nearly 16,000 jobs lost in Lesotho's textile-apparel sector in 6 years", 19 June 2024

Lesotho lost around 16,000 textile-apparel industry jobs between March 2018 and March 2024, a workshop convened by the Lesotho National Development Corporation was told.

Between March 2023 and March 2024, the sector saw a 12.79 per cent employment drop.

Rising operational costs, supply chain disruptions, order decline and financial strain have hit the sector

Lesotho lost around 16,000 textile and apparel industry jobs between March 2018 and March 2024, a recent workshop convened by the Lesotho National Development Corporation (LNDC) was told.

Between March 2023 and March 2024 alone, the industry saw a 12.79 per cent decline in employment, or a loss of 4,740 jobs, LNDC’s corporate investment and trade promotion general manager, Puseletso Makhakhe said.

A reduction in the sector’s export markets has affected the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), she said...

“Our employment trends show that in March 2018, we had 49,945 jobs [in the textile sector], but in March 2024, we were at 34,151. The industry remains the second largest employer after the public sector. However, it had been experiencing a steady decline in recent years,” Makhakhe was quoted as saying by domestic media reports.

Increasing operational costs, supply chain disruptions, a decline in orders, financial strain, partly caused by delayed value-added tax refunds, have affected competitiveness of the country’s textile and clothing industry, she added.